In the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy spirit. Amen. There's one thing that's perfectly clear and indisputable. When our blessed lord, in this instance, sent out his apostles, And later on, when he gives them a second missionary commission, he doesn't give them a book. He didn't hand them the bible.
He didn't hand them the scriptures or any words you want to use for. What did he give them? You've heard it. Today, there is so much emphasis upon the bible that it can be over overdone. Christ didn't give us a book.
He gave us a church. And if there's any if there's any deep and wide separation between the reformers of the sixteenth century and the Catholic church, it's this very thing. Church versus book. Now, remember, when you're dealing with a book, you're dealing with a book. And, if you take five people and give them a book, you're going to get five different impressions or versions of what the book says.
And I'm talking now about the original language. When you give five people a translation, in some instances a translation of a translation, You're not giving First of all, you're not giving them their original book. You're giving them what some man, or some men, or some women thought the original says. And then, that far removed from the original, you you're you will get five versions from the five people who read the book. And, if there's one thing sure, you can't have five kinds of truth.
You can have five people receiving the truth. Oh, yes. Remember what I said yesterday. Whatever is known is known according to the mode of the knower. That is absolutely sure.
But the point is, you have those five very sincere, and let us say equally competent people, disagreeing about what the text says. Where is the truth? And it's the truth that will make you free. Where is Christ's truth? Our blessed Lord did not give anybody a zero rock copy of the good news.
As far as we know, he didn't write a single word. The only exception may be when he bent down to wrote something in the dust. And yet, we can be sure that Christ was literate. Every Jewish boy was literate. That means he could read and write.
Let's keep this in mind that that Christ gave us a living voice. A voice that was to endure down the centuries. Because if it doesn't endure, what good is it? If it's just a memory. If it's just a book.
Remember that the church would be here whether or not we had the New Testament, Or the epistles of Saint Paul, or James, or John, or Peter. This is something we've got to get into because what I have back in my mind, which is not so much back in my mind, as you can tell, was our the Holy Father's visit to Canada. Where you had a tremendous falling off of religious attendance up there. 4050%. That's in Canada.
In the Catholic part of Canada, not in the Far West. And, from what I could gather from the news reports, it's this attitude that every Catholic is a is a church to him or herself. That the authority of Christ Church is never mentioned. Much less obedience to the word of God. Well, where is the word of God?
Because, unless unless I can get a hold of that, don't talk to me about obedience and authority and all that malarkey. Because that's all it is. If it's only wishful thinking, or what some people think, I could care less because I read too much of that. And a good, sincere, intelligent, notable, famous, ingenious, all of it. I know what the human mind can do.
I know what it can't do, too. And so, God bless the Lord. He came on earth to bring us salvation. To bring us the reign of God. Notice that.
Not the reign of man. Not to make this a paradise on earth. It says the reign of God. And in order to establish that reign, what did Christ do? He took those apostles.
Remember, two six of them turned out to be pretty poor specimens. Did I say 2.6 to 2.12? Anyway, my fractions are poor. And he gave them the good news. And he tells them to go out and to spread the good news that he has given them.
Remember, you don't have any written texts until the second half of the first century. What did the church do in those fifty years or so? Or more? And so, we come back to the If we're going to come back to our blessed Lord, let's come back to the living Christ in his church. In his church, not in churchmen, but in his church, which endures down the century.
And, how do I know it? It has done it. No one can dispute that fact. That the church of Rome has a continuity right back to Jesus Christ. That is indisputable.
And, but that's not the whole story, remember. The truth, the living voice of Jesus Christ rests on a tripod. Tripod. A stool with three legs on it. And you know what happens if you have a stool with three legs and you lose one of them.
Try milking a cow with it. First of all, you have the message that Jesus Christ gave orally, tradition. You have the written word, and you have the living voice of the church. Three, three, three channels of the truth of Jesus Christ, the son of God. Noticed, I don't say loyal or devout Catholic.
I say the consistent Catholic. He may be the worst sinner on God's earth. But if he's a consistent logical Catholic, he will agree that these are the three these are the three legs on which our powering edifice of truth rests. Three. Take one away, and the edifice falls.
Fall. So, we have to hold the three together. The written word, the tradition of Christ's broken word, and finally, the teaching of his living Bible church. That's what we rest our faith upon. It isn't simple in many ways.
It's it's very complex in many ways. But in other ways, it's very simple. Very simple. Our blessed Lord came to give us the good news of salvation. And if he wants us to get it, he's got to make it available.
And he has made it available. But notice this text this morning. He tells you that, look, when you go into these towns and you set up shop in somebody's house, they will support you. Live on the alms that people give you. If they don't listen to you, get out and shake the dust from your feet if they don't listen to you.
And there's another text that you don't see on Christmas cards or on Easter cards. Don't Our blessed Lord said this, don't sow your pearls before swine. Otherwise, they are lost and destroyed. Keep that in mind. Our Lord said that.
You see, we're walking in many ways. We are walking a perilous plank. But we can walk it in security. Life is that all these figures of speech are so true. Life is a battle.
We are carrying a weapon. What's the weapon we're carrying as Christians? As soldiers of Jesus Christ. The end peridian, as Erasmus called them. Meletus.
The end peridian, the sword in my hand. What is it? It's the truth of Jesus Christ. And that's the truth I want when it comes to serious honest to God religion. Don't talk to me about philosophers and psychologists.
I want to what Jesus Christ says. Anything less than that won't do, will not do. It will not help me to salvation. But the word of Christ is mine for the listening, for the hearing, for the taking of it in. Because the opposite can happen.
In the name of the father, and the son, and the holy spirit. Amen.